Moved In....round 1

We have offically, and finally moved in.  Everyone is in their appropriate room (without doors), we have a functioning and almost complete kitchen, some boxes have been fully unpacked and life is starting to feel normal for the first time in a long time.

Walls and floors

It's been just over a month since the last video.   The drywall and floors were the longest part of this project.  Which I knew would be the case, as there was a lot of work and they are both multi step processes, but it felt so drawn out.  We were so close and now everything was taking so long!  The floors were done last weekend and we were cleared to move furniture yesterday, but without the painting done its not worth it yet.  So, I wait.  Sigh.  Wait should be my middle name at this point.

One week from today the kitchen install will begin!  Once that gets going I'll give another update, hopefully with a semi working kitchen!!

6 weeks

We have lived here a total of 6 weeks at this point and we are 4 weeks into the actual work.  Since I posted last, a lot of work has been done, but it's not the kind that looks like progress is being made.  All the plumbing is done, we ended up rewiring almost the entire house and installed a new electrical panel, we got all new duct work for our hvac system, the windows are installed, the old windows have been patched, all of the old drywall and installation has been completely removed and HUGE shout out to Tim on that!!  He has single handedly done about 90% of our demo.  We are on our 3rd dumpster and the first 2 alone weighed 13 tons!!  Yes, 13 TONS or 26,000 lbs and that doesn't even count this 3rd dumpster.

We are hopefully about 3 weeks away from being able to move in, that means electricity, air conditioning, separate bedrooms...um, er, privacy....starting to unpack and no more construction mess!  There will still be a ton of work, but I couldn't be more excited.  To say this has been a test of my inner strength is BEYOND an understatement.  All things considered, things are going pretty well.  I  feel totally fine and like I'm awesome until suddenly I am not.  About once every 2 weeks it gets to me and I feel like I'm going to die from this mess.  I can't even recall the entire situation, but the water and electricity were turned off for the day, Lulu pooped on the floor and the boys were fighting and I thought I was going to lose it.  I took a  pillow behind the boxes and SCREAMED.  You guys, my throat hurt for 2 days, but on the up side I didn't kill anyone.

Note: when I watched the video I realized  I used the word "I" instead of "We" on a few things.  This is definitely a WE situation.  Tim works hard all day to pay for this and then comes home and slaves away on the house.  I am blessed beyond measure to have this guy.  Whenever he is struggling with the back breaking labor, I remind him, if only he was little bit stronger, then the work wouldn't be so hard.  I know, he's blessed to have me too.

Finally Progress

We are just finishing up our 3rd week of glamping and so far so good.  It is equal parts better and worse than I expected.

All 5 of us in one room is working out better than I expected. I forgot to show our room in the video, but I'll make sure to next time.  It is set up the same as when we moved in, but a bit more organized.  

The boys basically play outside morning, noon and night.  They love it and are filthy within 5 minutes of leaving the house.  Lulu is the challenge during this time.  It's hard enough for the boys to stay away from construction dangers.  Lulu is a bit of a wanderer and is now able to open doors.  I cant even begin to count the number of times she has let herself out and I find her playing with debris by the dumpster!

Last week the Framer and his crew were working.  I didn't think it would be that big of a deal, as we only go into the house to use the bathroom. Well, as soon as you have to start walking through a crew of men to go to the bathroom, you realize the inconvience of how often children use the bathroom, the lack of any sort of privacy and the nasty nature of sharing a bathroom with construction workers.  It was a long 6 days.  Thankfully, they were super quick and it was only 6 days, not the 2 weeks originally quoted.

The electrician started today and should be done sometime next week.  When he got here this morning I had to do a full house walk through finalizing where every switch, light and outlet will be placed.  A lot of it is silly, but then you wonder, when it's all done will I have wanted that outlet 6 inches to the left or to the right?  Or, I have to decide now the EXACT placement of bathroom sconces without the vanity, mirrors or even walls in place. #firstworldproblems

The boys start school in 3 weeks.  3 weeks!?!?  I still haven't found all of their clothes.  I've found all boxes labeled 'boys clothes' but definitely haven't found all of their clothes. That is the bummer to having a moving company pack.  The few boxes I did pack, well I can tell you exactly where all of the extra towels, blankets, throw pillows and no longer needed baby stuff is.  Needless to say, after almost 7 months of wearing the same suitcase of clothes, I think im going to have to break down and buy them clothes.  Darn 😁

That's it for now, hopefully in 2 weeks I should have more completed progress!

3 month update

Well, this is no where near what I expected to share on a 3 month update.  We've hit a few monumental snags and we are just trying to roll with the punches.  We were originally hopping to wait until the house was complete or very close to it before moving in,  but here we are.  A fraudulent architect and no permits have put us at a stand still.  We have hired a new architect and structural engineer, but we are obviously extremely behind.  I thought moving my family across the country and trying to find a house was hard, then I thought living in temporary housing was hard....well the joke was on me.  I now understand that stuff was just hard-ish.  Living in the house you are renovating with no end in sight, THAT is hard.  Many of you who know me, know I thrive on structure and organization.  Cleanliness is a virtue- is my way of life.  This life is everything, except for those things.  There is a refining of my soul going on here and it is a messy process.  Literally and figuratively.

Praise God from who all blessings flow.  Some day, I will have an update with progress!

1 month update

We closed a little over a month ago now.  Tim has done a ton of back breaking demo while we patiently {hahahahaha} wait for our permits.

This is a 2 part walk thru of the demo progress:

This next video, I need some opinions.  I know you all have them.  Please share!  This little part of the kitchen won't be completed until after we've moved in.  That's give us time to live in the space before decisions are made, but it might change what we do with the laundry room, so I'm trying to make a plan now.  Take a  look and let me know!

Day 1 & Day 2

My parents took the kids so we could deal with the movers.  This gave us a little bit of time after the movers left and some time the next morning.  It is amazing the work that we completed in those few hours without 3 little kids.

We removed all of the carpet, carpet pads and weird crumbly, distentigraded carpet pads.  Shout out to Tim on this one.  He removed the carpets from the bedrooms that were still wet with dog urine!  N-A-S-T-Y.  We bleached the sub floors in efforts to get rid of the smell.  Although, upon returning today, we found out it's going to need more than bleach to get rid of the smell.  Insert, my complete panic that the smell won't go away.  We are going to live in a smelly house.  We are going to die from dog urine inhalation....and probably absestos.  Oh, and lead paint.  Anyway.....I removed the wallpaper from the living room.  Tim removed 90% of the tile floor in the dinning room while I white washed the fireplace.

Then we went home, burned our clothes and bathed in bleach.

Here are the videos of the parts we finished.

I didn't get video of the fireplace, so here's the before-ish (I had painted a few stones) and the after.

I don't dislike how it turned out, but I don't like it just yet.  It's definitely better, but still lacking.  I think once the walls are painted, we add a dark wood mantel and wood floors it will look better.  I suggested getting a sprayer and painting it completely white, Tim suggested drywalling over it.  I guess it's still up for debate.

I'm happy with the progress we made in 2 days, but now we just sit by and wait.  The renovations can't start until our permits are cleared.  That could be another 4-6 weeks! We are desperately praying for a miracle that it won't truly take that long.  We can continue with demo, but we won't have a dumpster until the contractors start.  We don't want our first impression to the neighborhood be a pile of junk in driveway for a month.  But, really most importantly, some of the walls being removed are weight bearing and you can't tear those down until you are ready to replace the support.  So we wait.  And then probably wait a little more.  In the mean time, we are finalizing the fun stuff like floors, kitchen remodel and all sorts of hardware/finishes.

The time frame on renovations feel hopeless.  Originally, we wanted to move in by the end of May.  Now, our goal is sometime before July.  My no joke-"I'm going to kill somebody" date is before TJ starts kindergarten.  So basically, we have no idea.  But, mark my word, my baby's first day of school picture will be on my new front step.

The new house tour

After countless houses and 6 offers, we finally found the house for us.  6th times the charm, I guess.  It has a huge yard ,the views from the from windows are beautiful and it has tons of potential.  "Tons of potential" should read as old and super smelly, but we can make it perfect for us!  Enjoy this little tour and be thankful it's not a scratch and sniff :)